Temporary Status, Uneven Gains: Labor Market Effects of TPS on Central American Immigrants Public

Abstract

This paper investigates the labor market effects of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) on eligible immigrants from designated countries. Focusing on immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, I assess the impact of TPS on several labor outcomes: pre-tax personal income, annual wages, weekly hours worked, labor force participation, and employment status. Using data from the American Community Survey and a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) framework, I compare TPS-eligible individuals to similarly undocumented likely immigrants from the same country of origin who arrived after the eligibility cutoff, as well as to a control group of Mexican immigrants. My analysis isolates the effect of TPS as a form of temporary legalization and reveals that its labor market benefits are not uniform. In particular, I find that the impact of the policy varies by country, gender, and educational attainment. These findings suggest that liminal legality, while offering some economic stability, interacts with existing social and institutional inequalities, limiting the extent of TPS’s labor-enhancing potential across subgroups.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of Temporary Protected Status (TPS)

1.2 Amnesty and Legalization Programs

1.3 The Unique Nature of TPS

1.4 Research Problem and Core Question

1.5 The Study’s Unique Contribution

2. Method

2.1 Data and Sample

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 Regression Equation

2.2.2 Key Assumptions

2.3 Robustness Checks

3. Results

3.1 General Sample Results

3.2 Gender Subsets Results

3.3 Results Discussion

3.4 Empirical Concerns

4. Conclusion

About this Honors Thesis

Rights statement

• Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.

School	Emory College
Department	Economics
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations Economics, General Economics, Labor
Mot-clé	Natural experiments in economics Program evaluation Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Difference-in-Differences (DiD) Immigrant labor supply Causal inference Immigration economics Labor market effects of public policy Labor economics Migration policy analysis Education and labor outcomes Wage effects of legalization Central American immigrants legalization programs Policy shocks in labor markets Labor market outcomes Employment outcomes
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Hau Nguyen, Emory University
Committee Members	Pedro Sant’Anna, Emory University Paloma Lopez de mesa Moyano, Emory University

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